Management Thoughts for Entrepreneurs

Making melodious music and Entrepreneurs developing a fine-tuned business have some similarities.

Creating a melody requires the proper musical notes. A spectrum of notes is available to all, but picking the right notes to create a musical piece is critical. One or more wrong notes results in music being noticeably out of tune. Similarly in business, an Entrepreneur has access to multiple resources – markets, clients, management team, employees, facilities, investors, suppliers, advisors and so on. Blending these resources properly, just like selecting the appropriate notes, will allow the development of a beautifully functioning business. A wrong choice or decision here and there ruins the musical piece or a well-oiled business machine.

Only playing the correct musical notes does not make a melody; the notes have to be played to the appropriate beat. The business activities of a growing organization have to be running at the right pace. One cannot have some parts of the company forging ahead while others are lagging. Moving towards the goal at a synchronized pace leads to success.

Entrepreneurs do not have to be musicians, but applying lessons of music might help them in successfully growing their businesses.

What separates leaders is that when mistakes are made, genuine leaders offer a sincere apology. What does that entail?

Have you heard someone say sorry and then add a “but?” In those cases there are all kinds of excuses after the “but.” All these apologies are watered down by offering excuses.

A sincere apology is just that – sincere! When you make a mistake, no matter affecting which stakeholder, just say a sincere sorry without any excuses or reasons. This will be more genuine than trying to explain what happened to cause that mistake.

To be even more effective, you should privately analyze the reasons for the mistake and establish corrective actions to prevent that in the future. This will appear more sincere to the offended party.

How often have you heard someone say “I am perfectionist.” It might be ideal, but it is not helpful for Entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are generally impatient. They need to see the fruits of their invention right away. If they wait to perfect it, they get bored and move on to something else. The market will not wait either – getting it to the market first is the name of the game.

As Entrepreneurs grow their business, they should be striving for measurable progress on established goals rather than perfection at a point in time. Sustained progress in the right direction is desirable than perfecting some aspect of the product, process or service without overall forward movement.

An idea that is ninety percent complete and implemented is better than something that is not put into practice as it waits to be perfected.

While perfection might be appropriate for artists and scientists, Entrepreneurs need to be progress driven! Show leadership by demanding progress from your employees instead of perfection.

Entrepreneurs often complain that they don’t have enough time. This isn’t about traditional time management!

Instead, think about time management in another way. If you don’t have time to get things done, are you actually doing the Right Things?

Entrepreneurs, especially early in their careers, often have a tendency to not only do everything themselves, but also focus on doing tasks right – whether they are important or not!

The focus for Entrepreneurs should be to define and do the Right Things and delegate the rest. Once you discover and focus on the Right Things, you will probably have more time to do them. Wasting time on things that Entrepreneurs like to do, being perfect on insignificant tasks, or not delegating steals time from more important things to do for your business.